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Comment by humanrebar | Hacker News Reader

And it doesn't mention that even the most educated workers are not keeping pace with real GDP growth.

The analysis basically books down to "supply exceeds demand, uneducated hardest hit". I would have liked to see more analysis on the ultimate reason for the lack of demand for workers.

Finally, it bugs me when people blame technology for destroying jobs and not society, employees, and employers for thinking simple, repetitive jobs are viable long-term career paths. Distilled to absurdity, we could pay people to dig holes and refill them, but robots will always be orders of magnitude better at that. Why blame the robot and not everyone else for not realizing hole-digger is a job with an expiration date?

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Few people think a repetitive, unskilled job is a viable career path. People take these jobs because they have no other choice. Not everyone can go to college.

I think that really depends on upbringing. In rural areas with little education past highschool, there are plenty of people who would willingly do mind numbing work, if they got a decent paycheck from it. It's not mind numbing to them because its not framed that way in their mind. They see "I give you labor, you give me money". They are okay with that. People with higher education see things differently, but its not necessarily a better interpretation.

You don't have to go to college to think strategically about your next job, not just the current one.

> People take these jobs because they have no other choice.

You take a job because you have no other choice. You stay at a job past the expiration date because:

* nobody told you that jobs have expiration dates

* you know but think you'll deal with that problem later

...I think it's important for us to create a culture that encourages people to think about their jobs and careers strategically. The broader conversation revolves around statements like "people are stuck" or "they need retraining and/or education". I don't think those statements and attitudes are helping people enough, especially when bootstrapping, self-education, and content creation are cheaper and easier than ever.

You have to be in a good position just for the option of bootstrapping, and educating yourself. If you're working two jobs just to keep the lights on, you don't have the time or money. And self education doesn't mean much if you can't list a degree on your resume. It's not hopeless, but it's hard!

Reasons for lack of demand:

-phase lag: It takes a while for the economy to find uses for increased labour.

-Until the above is fixed: Unbalanced levels of education: The economy requires x amount of elementary graduates per y amount of high school graduates per z amount of university graduates. Mostly unskilled immigrants don't come in these ratios and therefore introduces imbalance, meaning there's a surplus of unskilled workers

What are the jobs without an expiration date?

It's always funny how when these kinds of questions arise in HN a lot of people is worried about what are "we" going to do with "them" when "we" have not works for "them".

(not talking about the parent here, by the way)

All jobs have expiration dates unless you're independently wealthy. That's why, for decades, commencement addresses have repeated factoids about the inevitability of career change.

It doesn't make sense, then, to stand around and grumble about how the robots are messing everything up. Instead, we need to develop productive advice and attitudes about being creators that use all this automation to do even greater things.

>I would have liked to see more analysis on the ultimate reason for the lack of demand for workers.

The simple answer is: because state economic policy has been systematically configured to keep inflation low and asset values high. Any economist can tell you that low inflation and high asset values, as goals, conflict with full employment, and tend to suppress the price of labor. Somehow, it has become a Thing You Don't Say to actually admit this fact, because that would mean low wages are a social problem rather than an individual moral failure.

>And it doesn't mention that even the most educated workers are not keeping pace with real GDP growth.

Should they be? Isn't a lot of rGDP growth caused by a growing population. Or is it not keeping up with rGDP/per capita.

>And it doesn't mention that even the most educated workers are not keeping pace with real GDP growth.

Doesn't this go away when you take into account benefits on top of salary?

Unless you can decline benefits and have an equivalent dollar amount tacked onto your paycheck, I don't see why they should be taken into account.

I'd need to check for references, but I think most of the growth of benefits goes to increased cost of health care.

It is bad enough to be told that your 10% salary raise will be payable in lottery tickets (most people remain healthy and get zero raise, a minority of sick people get huge payoff in the form of medical services); but when you find out that the jackpot is the same size but more tickets got printed (medical cost raise but quality of service flats out) you get really pissed off.

Sure, but then we aren't in a situation where growth of wages isn't keeping pace with GDP, we are in a situation where healthcare cost increases are outpacing GDP. They are two different problems.

Why don't you take it one step further and question the viability of the model of work as one of the primary sources of "inspiration" and "core" aspects in life and that life should not be centered around this in light of the recent developments in the job market and technology?

Also, please debate why most humans have to work in the first place just to put food on the table while the 1% of Earth's population controlling ~40% of global wealth.

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